


Shambles (The Rockiest Rock Bottom Ever)

by squidbobby



Category: SpongeBob SquarePants (Cartoon), The SpongeBob Musical - Various/Anthony & Coulton/Jarrow
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Living Together, M/M, Natural Disasters, Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:01:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29029866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squidbobby/pseuds/squidbobby
Summary: After the volcano disaster that wasn't, things are starting to get back to normal...except that Squidward's house has been destroyed by earthquakes and he's in shambles. Bikini Bottom's own hero, Spongebob Squarepants, offers to take Squidward into his home until other arrangements can be made, and Squidward doesn't exactly have many options. Feelings ensue.
Relationships: SpongeBob SquarePants/Squidward Tentacles
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	Shambles (The Rockiest Rock Bottom Ever)

**Author's Note:**

> Three years later...
> 
> Hey guys! I'm back! I wrote more Squidbob! I'm still @squidbobby on Tumblr and I would love to take your prompts for fics/headcanons because I'm in quarantine and bored!

It was a wonder how much of Bikini Bottom had stayed intact after the disaster that sort of wasn’t. Really, with the odds they had been given, the whole place should’ve become a seafood buffet by now. He shouldn’t have been surprised, then, that his place was destroyed. The pineapple was one thing. Round and organic, it had no trouble staying in one piece throughout the quakes, though apparently not everything inside was so lucky, if Spongebob’s unusually somber trash drop-off meant anything. Patrick’s home was rock, same as Squidward’s, but it was low to the ground and dome-shaped, and his entire living space was made out of sand, anyway.

Squidward’s home was not so lucky. He had tried to listen to Sandy through the fog, something about the building being too brittle to withstand seismic activity? Either way, his home--his former home, that is--lay in shambles around him. A few locals including his neighbors had volunteered to help Squidward sift through the rubble, and were now shuffling around in pairs, sorting things into variously marked piles and murmuring sympathetically to each other. Squidward glanced around, dazed, doing little and feeling useless. Occasionally someone had held an object up to him for appraisal, and his positive or negative grunts would determine which pile it went into.

About an hour into the search, a distinctly Spongebob-y series of noises came from behind Squidward. A grunt, a crash, a gasp, and a hurried shush. Even in his state, Squidward knew when to be suspicious. He whipped around to find Spongebob and Patrick grinning fearfully and hiding something behind their backs. Behind them was a toppled-over piece of rock wall that had been covering a significant little area and which nobody had worked up the motivation to move until, apparently, Patrick’s brawn and lack of brain had successfully coordinated. Squidward started towards them.

“Alright, what is it?” he asked with a sigh. “Can’t be any worse than anything else we’ve found so far.”

Spongebob and Patrick exchanged remorseful glances before Spongebob pulled his hands out from behind his back and showed Squidward what they had found.

“Oh…” came out of Squidward as he lowered himself shakily onto what was left of the sofa. So they had finally gotten to the ruins of his art room. He’d known, distantly, that that was coming eventually. It was a different thing entirely to see Spongebob, the picture of empathy, gingerly holding up the splintered pieces of his clarinet while looking at him as if he was going to splinter, himself, at any moment.

And splinter he did. For the first time since the volcano didn’t erupt, tears welled up in Squidward’s eyes.

“I-I, uh…” Squidward began shakily. He barely had time to take another breath before a sob escaped him and his face crumpled as he covered it with his hands. Squidward suddenly felt like everything was caving in on him. First the trauma of the almost disaster, then the shock of coming home to being homeless, and now the humiliation of losing control of himself over a stupid piece of wood in front of a dozen people. He curled in on himself on the sofa and wrapped his arms around each other. All the rock bottoms he thought he had fallen into in his life didn’t compare to this, the rockiest rock bottom ever. His breath hitched when he felt a dip next to him on the sofa, but he didn’t pull his hands away from his face lest the dip’s creator see his face, which was sure to be puffy and red by now.

A small hand tentatively touched Squidward’s shoulder, and he hunched further inward until a soft voice spoke up.

“It’s okay,” Spongebob murmured. “They’re gone.”

Squidward carefully peeked over his fingers and realized that Spongebob was telling the truth. Whether the volunteers had left of their own volition because they were uncomfortable with Squidward’s outburst or had been shooed away by Spongebob and/or Patrick, the two of them were now alone on Conch Street. He considered retreating back behind his hands anyway, but this was Spongebob. The little guy had seen Squidward at all of his worst times, him being the cause of most of his worst times notwithstanding. Squidward lowered his hands, sniffed, and faced forward, gathering up what dignity he could. He could see Spongebob in his peripheral vision, his face open and vulnerable as always. Suddenly he felt a wad of tissues being pressed into his hand, and Squidward smiled despite himself, but it was a sad smile.

“I don’t know what to do now.” Squidward said to nobody in particular. Now that the sobs had died down, he felt hollow again, but this time with a headache.

“What do you mean?” asked Spongebob. His head was cocked like a quizzical child’s.

Squidward huffed. “I mean, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. My mother offered to let me live with her, but that’s hours away and my job is here. There’s nothing left to rebuild my house with, and I don’t have the money or credit for a new place. I’m gonna have to move back home and lose my job and live in my mother’s basement like the loser I am, and--”

Spongebob’s hand tightened where it was on Squidward’s shoulder.

“What do you mean you have nowhere to go? My house is right there!” He gestured next door, where the pineapple stood unfazed by the earthquakes.

At this, Squidward turned to look at Spongebob’s face straight on. His mouth was quirked into a smile, and his eyes were the kind of wide-eyed enthusiastic empathetic eyes that Squidward had seen in him when they’d passed abandoned baby snails in a box or flowers that needed watering. Well, Squidward guessed he was not that different from an abandoned baby snail these days.

“I don’t know, Spongebob…” Squidward started. They’d roomed together for short periods of time before for one reason or another, and it never ended very well.

“Shush,” Spongebob said, headstrong. “I won’t hear any protest on this. I want to help, and this way you can keep your job and we can walk to work together. Oh, it’ll be like a sleepover!” 

As Spongebob began talking about matching pajamas and his eyes began to sparkle, Squidward wondered whether it would really be so bad to stay with his neighbor for a while. Besides, what other options did he have? He shuddered to think of what staying with Patrick or Krabs would be like, and he wasn’t exactly jumping at the chance to go home and listen to his mother cry “I told you so” every other minute as if it was his fault that he had barely escaped death and his house hadn’t. Squidward sighed inwardly.

“Okay, Spongebob, but just until I find somewhere cheap to stay.”

“Yay!!!” Spongebob released Squidward’s shoulder and ran into the pineapple. Squidward looked around, confused, until Spongebob burst back out with a handful of what looked like empty bags.

“Here,” Spongebob said, handing Squidward a large duffle bag. “Pack up everything that’s in the ‘not completely destroyed’ piles and we’ll get you moved in and go shopping for some essentials!”

So this was really happening. Squidward stood up from the sofa and quietly began putting blankets and clothes from one pile into Spongebob’s bag as Spongebob hummed merrily and collected his own pile into a reusable grocery bag with smiley faces all over it. Squidward watched him and snorted out a quiet, disbelieving laugh. How many times had he been cruel to the little guy, only for Spongebob to come right back the next day, smiling as brightly as ever? And how many times had Spongebob gone to great lengths just to help him, or simply make him smile? For a moment, Squidward looked at him and saw the hero of Bikini Bottom, the kid who helped his friends stop a natural disaster in its tracks and save an entire city. He didn’t seem like so much of a kid these days.

“Woo, let’s go buddy!” Squidward was shaken from his revelry by a shout, and he looked up to see that all the remaining piles, including the rest of the one he was working on, had been packed and left in a pile of overstuffed bags decorated with varying levels of whimsy. Spongebob grabbed his arm and led him to Squidward’s boatmobile, which had been spared. “Best friends’ shopping trip!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please kudos/comment if you're so inclined and don't forget to follow me on tumblr @squidbobby if you're interested in stuff like headcanons and mini fics.


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